It was with a furious gaze that he watched her, but in his eyes Jillian glimpsed the heat he struggled to hide.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, never taking her eyes from his. “Kiss me and then try to tell me that you don’t feel it too.”
“Stop it,” he ordered hoarsely, backing away.
“Kiss me, Grimm! And not because you think you’re doing me a ‘favor’! Kiss me because you want to! Once you told me you wouldn’t because I was a child. Well, I’m no longer a child, but a woman grown. Other men wish to kiss me. Why not you?”
“It isn’t like that, Jillian.” Both hands moved in frustration to his hair. He buried his fingers deep, then yanked the leather thong off and cast it to the stones.
“Then what is it? Why do Quinn and Ramsay and every other man I’ve ever known want me, but not you? Must I choose one of them? Is it Quinn I should be asking to kiss me? To bed me? To make me a woman?”
He growled, a low warning rumble in his throat. “Stop it, Jillian!”
Jillian tossed her head in a timeless gesture of temptation and defiance. “Kiss me, Grimm, please. Just once, as if you mean it.”
He sprang with such grace and speed that she had no warning. His hands sunk into her hair, pinning her head between his palms and arching her neck back. His lips covered hers and he took the breath from her lungs.
His lips moved over hers with unrestrained hunger, but in the bruising crush of his mouth she sensed a touch of anger—an element she didn’t understand. How could he be angry with her when it was so apparent that he’d wanted desperately to kiss her? Of that she was certain. The instant his lips had claimed hers, any doubts she’d previously suffered were permanently laid to rest. She could feel his desire struggling just beneath his skin, waging a mighty battle against his will. And losing, she thought smugly as his grip on her hair gentled enough for him to tilt her head, allowing his tongue deeper access to her mouth.
Jillian softened against him, clung to his shoulders, and gave herself over to dizzying waves of sensation. How could a simple kiss resonate in every inch of her body and make it seem the floor was tilting wildly beneath her feet? She kissed him back eagerly and fiercely. After so many years of wanting him, she finally had her answer. Grimm Roderick needed to touch her with the same undeniable need she felt for him.
And she knew that with Grimm Roderick—just once would never be enough.
CHAPTER 16
THE KISS SPUN OUT AND DEEPENED. IT WAS FUELED BY years of denied emotion, years of disavowed passion that swiftly clawed to the surface of Grimm’s resolve. Standing in the Greathall amidst the wreckage of a feast, kissing Jillian, he realized he hadn’t just been denying himself peace, he’d been denying himself life. For this was life, this exquisite moment of blending. His Berserker senses were overwhelmed, stupefied by the taste and touch of Jillian. He exulted in the kiss, becoming a bacchanalian worshiper of her lips as he slipped his hands through her hair, following the silken skein down her back.
He kissed Jillian as he’d never kissed any other woman, driven by hunger sprung from the most profane and the most sacred depths of his soul. He wanted her instinctively and would worship her with the primitiveness of his need. The press of her lips thawed the man, the questing probe of her tongue tamed and humbled the icy Viking warrior who had known no warmth until this moment. Desire flattened all his objections and he crushed her body against his, taking her tongue into his mouth as deeply as he knew she would welcome his body into hers.
They slipped and slid on the bits of food scattered across the stones, stopping only at the stability of the wall. Without lifting his mouth from hers, Grimm slid a hand beneath her hips, braced her shoulders against the wall, and drew her legs around his waist. Years of watching her, forbidding himself to touch her, culminated in a display of frenzied passion. Urgency dictated his movements, not patience or skill. His hands slipped from her ankles as her arms entwined his neck and he pushed her gown up and over her calves, revealing her long, lovely legs. He caressed her skin, groaning against her lips when his thumbs found the soft skin of her inner thighs.
The kiss deepened as he took her mouth the same way he’d laid siege to castles: persistently, ruthlessly, and with single-minded focus. There was only Jillian, warm woman in his hands, warm tongue in his mouth, and she matched him, each wordless demand of his body met by hers. She buried her hands in his hair and kissed him back until he was almost breathless himself. Years of need crashed over him as his hands found her breasts and palmed their curves. Her nipples were hard and peaked; he needed more than her lips—he needed to taste every crevice and hollow of her body.